‘Work of Art’: The Premiere of the New Bravo Reality Series

Welcome to “Work of Art,” Bravo’s latest attempt to recapture the reality show zeitgeist it arguably lost when Lifetime snatched “Project Runway” away. In this series, fourteen artists will compete to be named “the next great artist.” Okay, we see. This is “Project Runway: But With Paint!” The grand prize? A solo show at the “world-famous Brooklyn Museum” and $100,000. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” host China Chow says before we go into the credits—just like Heidi does at the beginning of that other show.

We meet our first artist: Abdi Farah, a figurative painter/sculptor from small-town Pennsylvania. Everyone’s first assignment was to make a self-portrait and bring it to the first day of competition; Abdi’s shows the artist as a “space alien, or space hero,” wearing a silly helmet and a skintight jumpsuit. It turns out that this is an outfit Abdi actually owns. We’re going to like Abdi.

Next up is Nao Bustamante, a 46-year-old performance artist. Her audition tape shows Nao wearing a water-filled plastic bag on top of her head, then tearing it off.“I feel like I’ve already won,” she says in voiceover as the camera shows her passing by her competitor’s pieces and immediately dismissing each one in turn. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have this season’s villain.

Jaclyn Santos is a realist painter. She’s also a knockout in a skintight grey dress. People assume that “someone like me” couldn’t be an artist, she says—but then she surprises them with her work. Her self-portrait shows the artist posing with her legs wide open. Thankfully, she’s strategically painted a red star over her doppelganger’s crotch.

There is a contestant named Peregrine. Seriously? Her self-portrait is a figure vomiting flowers. Southern Jaime Lynn made a drawing-slash-collage. Photographer Mark took a picture of himself apparently bursting out of a frame. Man, there are a lot of artists here. Can we start cutting people yet?

China enters the room with a well-dressed Frenchman by her side. He’s Simon de Pury, a former chief auctioneer at Sotheby’s and the current chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company. Simon will be a mentor to the artists, the Tim Gunn of “Work of Art.” And it doesn’t hurt to have a Simon on a reality show.

Finally, it’s time for Challenge #1. The artists are going to create portraits of one another. Hey, it’s just like that “Project Runway” challenge from Season 2 where Santino made that awful jumpsuit for Kara Janx!

They’ve only got until midnight tonight and a few hours the next day to complete their pieces. Somehow, those time constraints seem a lot harsher when we’re dealing with art rather than clothes; the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel wasn’t painted in a day.

“Let’s check out your workspace!” Simon says, adorably, as they journey to an enormous, cavernous studio. Each pair chats for half an hour before beginning their portraits. 61-year-old Judith freaks out her partner, Jaclyn by talking about pussies. “It was these pussy pieces that put me on the map,” she explains in her audition video while gesturing at a picture of a cat captioned with the words “shy white pussy.”

“I’m really into lilies right now. And hermaphrodites,” says Peregrine, who’s paired with Nicole. She wants to draw Nicole in the nude. Nicole thinks that having worked in a wood shop makes her unique. Uh, not when your competition is into lilies and hermaphrodites, it doesn’t.

Simon dramatically enters the studio and says that he has a surprise for the artists. Oo—are they going to have to make an extra painting, or paint only using materials bought from a supermarket? Nope—it’s just a visit from Sarah Jessica Parker, an executive producer of “Work of Art.” Hey, it’s just like that episode of “Project Runway” with Sarah Jessica Parker from Season 4!

Miles prepares his materials to do a screen print as Nao looks on, amused. She’s decided that her work will be a mapping of Miles as he runs around. This will be important later.

At 3 hours to midnight, Simon arrives to give everyone’s work a once-over. He doesn’t get how Amanda’s portrait represents Jaime Lynn because it looks like a sponge-painted drawing of leaves. Then we get to amateur artist Erik, who—eesh!—has painted a horrifying picture of his partner, photographer Mark as a scary-ass clown.

Teehee—their lodgings are in a place called the William Beaver House.

It’s the day of their first gallery show. The artists finish up. Amanda’s excited about her piece, but she’s also nervous about getting feedback. That’s because she made a sponge-painted drawing of leaves.

Finally, Simon comes in to let them know that time is up. They head to the gallery and meet their judging panel, which includes New York Mag art critic Jerry Saltz, gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, and gallery co-owner Bill Powers. Random New Yorkers flood the gallery. Though it’s tough to judge which piece is the best, there are a few clear stinkers—that awful, creepy clown picture, for one, and Amanda’s bewildering abstract canvas. Nao’s minimalist “portrait” of Miles—a collection of dots and lines—and Judith’s weird “proud pussy” painting are also at the bottom of the heap.

China announces that the judges will be talking to Abdi, Erik, Amanda, Mark, Miles, and Nao; everyone else has made it through. Miles’s death portrait is haunting, but in a good way. Nao’s portrait, though, is criticized harshly. She proudly announces that she knows a viewer could never understand what the painting means. Jerry thinks that she’s being defensive, and she responds by saying, in a prickly tone, “I’m not responsible for your experience of my work.”

Bill totally nails what’s wrong with Erik’s portrait of Mark when he says that it reminds him of a John Wayne Gacy self-portrait.

Uh-oh, it’s time for Amanda to talk. She says she tried to capture Jaime’s essence, and Bill replies that all he sees are falling leaves. “To you it’s a portrait, and maybe to Jaime,” Jerry continues. “But to no one else will it ever be a portrait.”

It’s time for deliberations. Miles, Mark, and Abdi are obviously at the top, while the other three are at the bottom. Bill was embarrassed by Erik’s clown. Nao’s piece is too obscure, says Jerry—and her attitude is also stank. Everyone agrees that Amanda’s painting is obviously not a portrait; Jeanne thinks it looks like “very good wallpaper.”

After the break, China announces the winner—Miles, who also gets immunity for next week. Then the losers gather. “It’s been said that good art is not what it looks like, but how it makes us feel,” China intones. “Your work didn’t make us feel anything.”

Though Nao and Erik put up a good fight, in the end, it’s Amanda’s puzzling “portrait” that gets the boot. “Your work of art didn’t work for us,” China tells the former architect.

While this isn’t much as far as kiss-off lines go—the gold standard remains “See you later, decorator,” which Jonathan Adler would say to each person who got kicked off of Bravo’s “Top Design”—we’re still pleased, on the whole, by “Work of Art.” The work is intriguing, the judges are snappy, and most importantly, the characters actually have character—a must for any reality show that wants to become appointment television. We’re looking forward to seeing the rest of this season; after all, one can only watch “Project Runway” reruns so many times, right?

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Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.